Mars Hill Church

This article is about the church in Seattle, Washington. For the church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, see Mars Hill Bible Church.

Mars Hill Church
47°39′48″N 122°22′26″W / 47.66333°N 122.37389°W / 47.66333; -122.37389Coordinates: 47°39′48″N 122°22′26″W / 47.66333°N 122.37389°W / 47.66333; -122.37389[1]
Location	Seattle, Washington
Country	United States
Denomination	Acts 29 Network
Churchmanship	Evangelical
Weekly attendance	>10,000
Website	www.marshillchurch.org
History
Founded	1996
Founder(s)	Mark Driscoll, Lief Moi and Mike Gunn
Clergy
Pastor(s)	Mark Driscoll
Laity
Music group(s)	Mint The Brothers Of The Empty Tomb The Northern Conspiracy Sons of Thunder E-Pop Red Letter Ex Nihilo

Mars Hill Church is a Reformed Christian megachurch located in Seattle, Washington.^[2] Services are offered at multiple locations in the city; the church podcasts content of weekend services, as well as conferences on the Internet^[3] with more than 100,000 downloads every week.^[4] In 2008 approximately 7,500 people attended services at Mars Hill Church every week (23% more than in 2007).^[5]

History

The early years

Mars Hill Church was founded in spring 1996^[6] by Mark Driscoll, (at that time he was 25 years old), Lief Moi and Mike Gunn.^[7] The church started at the apartment of Driscoll and his wife Grace with the blessing of Antioch Bible Church and the exodus of about 30 of its students.^[8] They outgrew the apartment and started meeting in the youth rooms of another church.^[6] The church had its first official service October 1996, with 160 people attending;^[9] attendance quickly fell to around 60 because of discussions about the visions and mission of the church.^[10]

In the spring of 1997 the church expanded to two evening services. The transition to two different congregations resulted in some anxiety and stir by members who didn't want the church to grow bigger, but it resulted in growing attendance.^[11] Later that same year Mark Driscoll was invited to speak at a pastors' conference in California.^[12] The speech Driscoll made inspired many and had great influence on the emerging church movement and changed the focus from reaching Generation X, to reaching the postmodern world.^[13] The speech resulted in overwhelming media coverage of Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll,^[14] and put Driscoll in connection with Leadership Network.

Structure and organization

The church continued growing and it became obvious that the church needed organization and leadership. Inspired by Alan Roxburgh, Driscoll settled on an emerging and missional ecclesiology,^[15] and a complementarian view on women in ministry. The church installed the first team of elders and they took over much of the work teaching classes, counseling and training new leaders.^[16] Furthermore the church started a course for new members, called the Gospel Class, to ensure that members were focused on the mission of the church and that they agreed with the central doctrinal statements of the church. The class has been running every quarter since.^[17] In the fall of 1999 the church had grown to 350 in attendance every week and was able to pay Driscoll full time.^[18]

As a result of the large growth of the church, their bylaws, which outline how the church is organised, have been rewritten on a few occasions. The outcome of this process in November 2007 led to changes in leadership organization. The new bylaws installed Lead pastor Jamie Munson and preaching pastor Mark Driscoll and pastors Scott Thomas and Tim Beltz as "executive pastors" who lead the objectives of the church "under the authority of the Board of Directors" on which the executive pastors also serve as directors. The change precipitated the firing of two pastors.

"Mars Hill leaders said in forum postings that one fired pastor was removed, in part, for "displaying an unhealthy distrust in the senior leadership." They said the other was removed for "disregarding the accepted elder protocol for the bylaw deliberation period" and "verbally attacking the lead pastor" — charges the fired pastor denied, the leaders added."^[19]

Some have criticized the church for its harshness in dealing with dissent within its leadership. Citing as an example an incident in 2007 during the church reorganization in 2007 where two elders criticized the plan as consolidating power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. When one of the elders refused to repent he was subjected to church discipline according to Mars Hill Church's biblical convictions.^[20] Additionally, members who have openly questioned or dissented with Mars Hill leaders have been asked to leave the church if they do not trust their leaders and pastors judgements. This policy of church discipline was discussed during a lecture given on April 20, 2009 by Mark Driscoll for The Gospel Coalition.^[21]

Multisite church

In 2003 Mars Hill Church moved into a renovated hardware store in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.^[22] In 2006, in an effort to reduce the overcrowding at its services, Mars Hill opened its first satellite campus in Shoreline. This change also marked their transition to a multi-site church, using video sermons as well as other multimedia improvements to the church's web site to connect the campuses.^[22] Later in 2006, Mars Hill acquired two new properties, in West Seattle and Wedgwood which later became their West Seattle and Lake City campuses.^[22][23] After less than three years of operation, the Lake City campus announced it will be closing as of July 2010 and its members encouraged to scatter to other campuses because the Lake City campus did not produce enough funds to justify its continued existence. Pastor James became the executive pastor for Mars Hill shoreline. ^[24]

New locations of Mars Hill have been added using multi-campus "meta-church" structure connecting via high-definition video to the remote campuses during weekly worship services. This format has allowed each location to retain local ministries while benefiting from the programs afforded to them by the larger body - all under the leadership of the main campus. A fourth, and then a fifth, campus opened in 2007 and in 2008, a sixth location was added in downtown Seattle. A seventh campus, in Olympia, Washington, opened in Fall 2008^[25] and an eighth campus, the first outside of Washington state, opened in Albuquerque, New Mexico in Fall 2009.

In 2008 the church launched an online community-building network, called The City, to improve communication on all levels in the church. It was such a success that The City was purchased by the Christian publishing brand, Zondervan, before Christmas 2008.^[26]

Church Locations

Mars Hill Church currently meets at nine locations (Ballard, Shoreline, West Seattle, Bellevue, Downtown, Olympia, U-District, Federal Way, and Albuquerque, NM) with a total of twenty-five services each Sunday.^[27]

• Ballard Main Church is led by Pastor Bill Clem and is where pastor Mark Driscoll preaches live. The preaching is sent electronically to the other campuses.
• Bellevue Church is led by pastor Thomas Hurst.
• Downtown Seattle Church is led by pastor Tim Gaydos and is located in what formerly housed the controversial Tabella Nightclub.^[28]
• Shoreline Church is led by pastor Steve Tompkins
• West Seattle Church is led by Pastor David Fairchild.
• Olympia Church is led by pastor Steven J Mulkey
• U-District Church is a plant of the Ballard campus and is led by Pastor Matt Jensen
• Federal Way Church is led by Pastor Samuel Choi at Sequoyah Middle School
• Albuquerque, NM Church is led by pastor A. J. Hamilton and is located in the historic Lobo Theater
• Orange County, California

Growth and influence

In 2007 Mars Hill Church was rated as the second most church planting church,^[29] the 9th most innovative church,^[30] and it was the 23rd fastest growing church in in the United States in 2007 with a growth in attendance of 38% in one year.^[31] A recent report that rate by relevance and influence concluded that Mars Hill Church is the eighth most influential church in the United States.^[32][33]

Acts 29 Church Planting Network

Main article: Acts 29 Network

Acts 29 Church Planting Network^[34] is a separate 501(c)(3) from Mars Hill Church but was founded by Mars Hill in 2001. It is an interdenominational network of pastors and churches from around the world whose focus is to assess and equip qualified leaders plant new churches and rejuvenate declining churches. The President of Acts 29 is Scott Thomas, one of the four Mars Hill executive pastors.^[35] In 2011 the network helped plant 162 churches with a total of more than 400 church plants through the history of the network.^[29]

The Resurgence

TheResurgence.com^[36] is an outgrowth of the teaching ministry at Mars Hill Church. The intent of the ministry is to provide a large repository of free missional theology resources in hopes of serving the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ in culture. Additionally, Resurgence announced that starting in 2008 they began publishing a line of books called Re:Lit (Resurgence Literature) in partnership with Crossway.

References

1. ^ Only coordinates for Ballard Main Campus.
2. ^ Rose Egge (2008-07-14). "Mars Hill Church one of nation's fastest growing". Ballard News-Tribune. Archived from the original on 2008-08-03. http://web.archive.org/web/20080803000401/http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/articles/2008/07/14/news/local_news/news03.txt. Retrieved 2008-10-04. 
3. ^ "Mars Hill Church Media Library". Mars Hill Church. http://www.marshillchurch.org/media. Retrieved 2008-10-17. 
4. ^ Ronald E. Keener. "Seattle is among the least churched cities in America". Church Executive. http://www.churchexecutive.com/article.asp?IndexID=1087. Retrieved October 4, 2008. ^{[dead link]}
5. ^ "Mars Hill Church Stewardship Update" (PDF). http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/2008/12/09/20081209_december-2008-stewardship-update_document.pdf. Retrieved 2008-12-13. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Driscoll, Confessions, p 38.
7. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 54.
8. ^ From the section Story of http://www.harambeechurch2.org/aboutHarambee.php
9. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 76: "Between 160 and 200 had shown up for our big kick off service."
10. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 82-83: "Though our church was brand-new, we had already lost focus of our mission [...] Our attendance had declined to about sixty or seventy people..."
11. ^ Dricoll, Confessions, p 93: "Since we still could not find a Sunday morning location, we decided to split our 6:00 p.m. service into two services [...] When I told our people that we were going to grow beyond 150 people and expand to two services, some of them freaked out."
12. ^ "Generation X...Three Myths and Realities" (PDF). Leadership Network. http://www.leadnet.org/archives/netfax/64.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-09. ^{[dead link]}
13. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 98: "And it shifted the conversation from reaching Generation X to the emerging mission of reaching postmodern culture."
14. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 98: "I was not prepared for the media onslaught that came shortly thereafter. Before I knew it, National Public Radio was interviewing me, Mother Jones magazine did a feature on our church, Pat Robertson's 700 Club gave me a plaque for being America's "Church of the Week" and did a television story on us, other media outlets started asking for interviews, large denominations were asking me to be a consultant..."
15. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 108: "I began wrestling with his basic concept and came up with the following emerging and missional ecclesiology, which has governed our church ever since."
16. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 110-111.
17. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 112: "The Gospel Class is a series of Bible studies that I taught to ground our people in our essential doctrines and missiology... The class has run every quarter since it began."
18. ^ Driscoll, Confessions, p 113-116.
19. ^ Tu, Janet I. (2007-11-18). "Firing of pastors roils Mars Hill Church". Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004020898_webmarshill18m.html. Retrieved 2008-12-17. 
20. ^ Worthen, Molly. "Who Would Jesus Smackdown?". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=4. Retrieved 2009-01-06. 
21. ^ "Gospel Coalition 2009 - Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth". The Gospel Coalition. http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/Rightly-Dividing-the-Word-of-Truth#. Retrieved 2009-08-22. 
22. ^ ^{a b c} "Mars Hill - History". http://www.marshillchurch.org/about/history. Retrieved 2008-08-08. 
23. ^ "Mars Hill Church". http://lakecity.marshillchurch.org/about/. Retrieved 2008-08-08. 
24. ^ A Word from Pastor James...
25. ^ Parishioners connect at new campus of Mars Hill Church
26. ^ "Zondervan Acquires Online Community-Building Resource for Churches - The City". The Wall Street Journal. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Zondervan-Acquires-Online-Community-Building/story.aspx?guid={57A05E7B-FDDA-4C24-B774-2C8AC5A9A82E}. Retrieved 2009-01-07. 
27. ^ "Mars Hill - Locations and services". http://www.marshillchurch.org/locations_and_services. Retrieved 2009-11-08. 
28. ^ Bhatt, Sanjay. "Church will replace controversial Belltown nightclub Tabella." The Seattle Times. October 22, 2007.
29. ^ ^{a b} "2007 America's Top 25 Multiplying Churches" (PDF). Outreach Magazine's. http://outreachmagazine.com/docs/25innov_JA07.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-12. ^{[dead link]}
30. ^ "The 25 Most Innovative Churches in America" (PDF). Outreach Magazine's. http://outreachmagazine.com/library/features/documents/thelist1.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-12. ^{[dead link]}
31. ^ "101 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches" (PDF). Outreach Magazine's. http://outreachmagazine.com/docs/top100_2007_fastest.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-04. ^{[dead link]}
32. ^ "50 Most Influential Churches in America of 2007". 2007. http://churchrelevance.com/50-most-influential-churches-in-america-of-2007/. Retrieved 2008-01-26. 
33. ^ 50 Most Influential Churches
34. ^ Acts 29 Network
35. ^ "Mars Hill Church Pastors" (PDF). Mars Hill Church. http://www.marshillchurch.org/about/elders. Retrieved 2008-12-13. 
36. ^ TheResurgence.com

External links

• Mars Hill Church
• Mars Hill Global
• Pastor Dude's Mega-Church Draws Crowds - ABC Nightline story about Mars Hill Church
• Tempers Flare at Debate on the Devil - ABC Nightline debate at Mars Hill Church on the Devil